Earth Day Month Long Celebration Series - Composting

Making Earth Day a Month-Long Celebration Series from Pleasant Hill Community Church Food scraps. Okay, those aren’t the first words that come to mind when you think about the environment. But 22 percent of the municipal solid waste dropped into landfills or incinerators in the U.S. is, in fact, food that could be put to better use through composting and soil enrichment.

Moreover, food-scrap recycling programs, while still relatively uncommon, are having a growth moment in the U.S.; they’ve roughly doubled in size since 2010. Now, a national study by MIT researchers provides one of the first in-depth looks at the characteristics of places that have adopted food recycling, revealing several new facts in the process. Why does composting Matter? As stated previously, food represents the single largest occupant in landfills here in the US. Only 3% of food is composted. Getting food to our tables: • Food production eats up to 10% of the US energy budget • Uses 50% of US land • Uses 80% of the freshwater used in the US Yet: • Up to 40 % of food in the US goes uneaten • On average each person in the US wastes 20 lbs of food each and every month • That translated into $165 billion in food that is thrown out, <b>What makes this even worse, is that 1 in 8 Americans face hunger. According to the NRDC Food Waste Report Let’s cut the scrap and get involved. Here in Tennessee, the Tennessee Environmental Council has their program Come Post Your Compost. Here is a link of the activities in Cumberland County. Are you ready to get started? Register today; First time Composter or are you an Existing Composter? Pleasant Hill Community Church, United Church of Christ, located at 67 Church Drive, Pleasant Hill, TN. We are an Open and Affirming, Whole Earth, Global Mission, Just Peace congregation of the United Church of Christ. With roots in the post-Civil War work of the American Missionary Association and deep connections with Uplands Village, a UCC-affiliated retirement community here in Pleasant Hill, Pleasant Hill Community Church remains a vibrant center for social justice work and theological exploration.